So, I've been thinking about the many aspects of my N97, compared to other top-end devices on the market, for like a week now, at least. The echo that the news of the new firmware generated, is freakin' huge, in my opinion, bigger the smoke than the flame itself. Sure it brings SOME new features, but frankly: what's all the fuss about? The device should've rolled out the factories with those on board. So, while the changes are gonna be welcomed, I doubt it's much of a cause for cheering like immature schoolgirls.
I've cooked up my own little changelog of what a REAL v2.0 firmware should look like - and could potentially save the graces of a flagship who happened trip over its own legs. Note that most of these ideas are probably not mine at all, sorta just collected from many blogs entries and reviews, and tied them together with a rope. Probably.
Nokia N97 v2.0 firmware changelog - as it SHOULD be done. (Meaning: not real, fictional, etc - just so no one gets confused.)
General features
Widgets× visual tweaks: new themes, transition effects, landscape view sidebar size decreased, added more menu view options
× on-demand paging [gee, this was a huge boon on the N95, where is it from the N97??]
× gesture control: draw symbols to launch applications [we have a damn touchscreen, use it!]
× Smart Dialing
× QWERTY shortcut keys
× QWERTY long-press for secondary character [yes, this one's being done]
× global kinetic scrolling [yes, this one's being done too]
× virtual QWERTY keyboard [not seeing much chance for this, sadly, they're PRing the physical one too heavily]
× Camera button function to start secondary camera removed [am I the only one being annoyed by this?]
× all 3rd party applications can now be installed on mass memory too
× option to have individual languages installed/removed [there's a Dictionary app, but it's worth shit if my phone doesn't support even displaying, say, Japanese characters...]Calendar× 2 different widget screen: organize offline and online activities much better
× new widgets [whatever you can think of - messaging, N-Gage, etc]
× run several instances of the same widget [am I alone using multiple email addresses? only one email widget can be displayed tho, meaning only one address...]
× fix for Calendar widget: word wrapping [why on earth isn't this default???]Contacts× color codes for different types of events
× display list of upcoming events, filter by typeMusic Player× editable labels
Browser× added Internet radio [not like I'm using this THAT much, but the N95 knew it, so why's it gone?]
× visual improvements: artist and track title information in Now Playing [or an entirely new design, have you seen LG's BL40 Music Player? kickin' ass...]
× speed tweaks: better file handling [have 3960 tracks now, and it's a pain in the ass - dread the new fw if it's gonna display even more album info in the lists....]
× Music Store removed from regions where it's generally not available [one of the most unnecessary stuffs in the phone as of now, it only takes me to a freakin' webpage that says the service is not available here...]
× support for more ID tags: album artist, disc number, year
× D-pad control [like it is in basically all S60 3rd Ed. devices, like the N95...happen to want to do that a lot, only to find that I can't.]Messaging× speed tweaks [very slow when rendering pages]
× option to clear cache upon exiting [idk why this hasn't been implemented ages ago...]Photos× fix for message store place [you know, set it to mass memory, connect phone to PC in Mass Storage mode - voilá, it reverted to C:]
× visual enhancement: displaying sender's photo instead of message icon, if available from Contacts
× threaded messages [anyone remembers Nokia Conversation from the Beta Labs?]Videos & TV× merged with Videos - select type of media upon application start [either that, or get the video thumbnails the hell outta here!]
× "All Photos" display option
× new appearance [something classier than a flat panel, suiting a multimedia flagship much more, pweeze?]
× stability fixes (zooming, crashing) [zooming, and the picture returns to general overview; scrolling or zooming, application quits...anyone else having these?]
× autoscroll when bottom/top row is reached while marking itemsGPS/Maps× removed, merged with Photos
N-Gage× satellite lock tweaks/fixes [looks like it's still having troubles with that, for me anyways]
× free Drive and Walk navigations [my guess is that it SHOULD be at least 1 year, but 2-3 yrs sound more like it, actually...and lifetime? or that's just the dream-on category?]Applications× entirely new design [c'mon, that S60 v3 display is obnoxious]
× support for portrait mode [at least the frame app? i know games need the d-pad, but that should be a different story]
× games rewritten for new resolution [okay, daydreaming again, but it shouldn't be that difficult...?]
× functions and stability fixes [for some reason, I can't make it display point pickups in-game, for example]Camera× Notes - merged with Active Notes [you know, like SMS/MMS/email is merged into one Messaging thingy?]
× QuickOffice - full version added, installed on mass memory
× Adobe PDF - full version added, installed on mass memory
× Calculator - new, extended version [whatever happened to that nice new Java-based one from Beta Labs?]
× RealPlayer - support for more codecs: DivX/XviD, H.264, ...
× Log - now stores data on mass memory [one of the reasons for this being set to one day by many is that it's taking up phone memory space...]
× Download! - merged into OVI Store
× Drawing - option to send picture via MMS/email directly from application
× FM Transmitter - signal strength tweak [not sure if it can be done, but if so, please increase it please...?]
× brand new LifeBlog application [c'mon, "online as it happens", huge display, full qwerty - and I can't blog? wtf???]
× Application Manager: filter installed application by type (Symbian, Java, Widget)
× all 3rd party applications now removable [yes, the infamous JoikuSpot/Boingo/Qik triad, mainly]Other× added smile detection function
× added multiple face detection function
× added touch focus function
× 120 fps video recording
× panoramic image creation
× HD video recording [with saving to newly supported formats, of course]
× GPS fixes for geotagging [again, dunno about others, but mine takes too long a time to get the position, and loses it too quickly]× Nokia Messaging merged with firmware
× N-Gage merged with firmware
× Ovi Contacts merged with firmware
× Files On Ovi merged with firmware
× stand-alone Compass application added to firmware
× Nokia Java Runtime 2.0.2 added to firmware
× Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 added to firmware
Well, that's about it. For the applications at the bottom, I find it ridiculous that Nokia's not implementing at least Messaging and N-Gage into a device of this category. For the camera, I'm not sure all the functions can be done via software, but whichever can be, needs to be, and asap. For the rest...I guess they're self-explanatory. Or their comments certainly are, anyway.
What do you think? Should this be what a v2.0 firmware changelog looks like? Could these changes make the N97 a much better device than it is today?
I've already mentioned how appalling it is that the Photos/Videos apps on the N97 have a simple flat panel appearance, and that the Photos app actually displays videos too. One can live with that, I guess, but here's another thing I just stumbled upon that the device does not do right. See, when you have 32GB, you can have a laaaarge collection of images (word usage is intentional, it doesn't have to be photos you've snapped) and/or videos. And so, you can easily find yourself wanting to suddenly just get rid of a handful of them at once. What do you do?
First of all, of course you tap that little tick mark in the middle of the bottom bar - anyone else missing the "pencil" button? And then you start tapping your photos: actually, this could be improved too, or is a dragged selection rectangle technically impossible on this device/OS? Whoever knows, plz inform me. So, you're tapping and tapping like I did here. ->
<- Until you arrive at the bottom row of thumbnails, where you tap one more time, and then twice more. And NOTHING HAPPENS!
You have to manually drag down the scrollbar to access more images! Wouldn't it be more, say, rational, to have the images autoscroll at least one row when you get at the bottom? (Or the top too, it should be irrelevant, really, and work in both directions.) I can barely mention in a whisper, but Nokia could also make it definable, in a "scroll-this-many-rows-when-bottom-or-top-of-screen-is-reached" way. Maybe even a whole screen? I'm sure THIS could be done.
It's really a minor thing, but don't you think it'd improve this part of the user experience immensely?
...or v20.0.005 as it is in this here video:
Kinetic scrolling. Okay, great feature, yay for that. However, it should've been made like that from the very beginning, seeing how this is nothing revolutionary new, and has been around the block for quite a bit.
Access to about 25-30MB phone memory for software installs. Er, yeah, so what? I mean, to start with, you shouldn't have shipped the phone with such minuscule amount of that, to start with. And like, hullo? Years of designing and you don't actually notice that the thing sports 32GB onboard mass memory? Use it, ffs, please.
"Some new content." Yeah. Like CNN video and Metro and ESPN...that's about all that's seen and mentioned. Exciting? Hardly. Well, maybe to some, but I doubt it'll have a major impact.
Album art shown in music player's music list. That's certainly welcomed, but I can't help being skeptic: it's like a snail already when it comes to handling my collection and I only have some 3753 tracks on the device... (seen the X6 hands-on video? See here if not. Same 32GB and guy says it should be enough for about 11thousand tracks - wonder if that could actually kill the poor N97...) Did they do any tweaking so that it handles files better, or just thrown in another feature to annoy us on the long run?
...and that about covers ALL the new features. Let's do a quick run over what's NOT covered.
RAM improvements? Sure the OS leaves us with plenty of free RAM (...compared to previous fw versions, anyway, remember it's hw limited so there's not much more to do to that), but if you check, there's an awful lot of applications on autostart that run in the background after you switch your device on. I know it's a smartphone, but I've tried it myself: killing those will leave the phone and all its functions operating just as they should operate, so what's the point? Besides, even though we get plenty of free RAM at start, somehow the used and then closed applications just don't seem to be fully unloaded from the memory: I've so far never managed to get back that 42-45MB amount I had at start after using some apps, be it music player, messaging, Gravity, browsing, or even calendar, or contacts. Work on that plz?
Virtual QWERTY? Yeah, I know, I've said it'd have to be a minor miracle for Nokia to get this one implemented, they're too high on PRing the physical keyboard of the device, but please. It's much needed, and wouldn't leave us not using the actual keyboard at all anymore; it WOULD add a great amount of comfort to the usability factor tho.
Transition effects? I refer back to the abovementioned X6 video again...watch it one more time if you overlooked those nice animations it has. Why aren't we getting those? (...I know the reason alright, inadequate hardware, but still, I don't believe something couldn't be done.)
"Please tap the screen continue." Yeah. They still didn't make up their minds about the single tap or double tap thingy. A tap-dance anyone??? Or more morse codes??? Blah.
Qik, Boingo, JoikuSpot... Still seeing those in the Apps list, and I bet they still won't be removable. Someone let me know how to create a folder in the Apps menu that I could hide, so at least I'll never have to SEE them again.
Nothing said about the PDF reader...at least that should be made a full version. 15day trial is just plain ridiculous on a premium device, even if it is this crippled.
AccuWeather widget. Updated it yet??? The damn thing is totally unusable, about 3 out of every 5 times it just fails to refresh data, no matter what I do. Not to mention once it gets online, it hogs the connection (and thus the battery power) continuously from then on. Hulloooo, update in every x minutes feature? You know, what they have in Nokia Messaging? It should be a freakin' option to let us choose how often we want to update. Oh and the appearance? Make the widget background color CHANGEABLE ffs, or at least create a version for the three different default themes: blue, white, and black. Or better yet, make it transparent. The whole thing is just obnoxious if not used with a black theme.
So that's that. The new fw with the mentioned/shown updates will certainly be welcomed, but about just as certainly fails to impress. I mean...I don't think this should come down as a v2.0. It's more like SP2 to a vanilla Vista. V1.5, more likely, but defo nothing more. Get a grip already, Nokia.
When I first saw the TV version of American Life (you know, the one with the flags only), I couldn't believe my eyes. I'd not seen such visual waste for a while. As for Celebration...couldn't like the song itself first, it felt too lukewarm: fast for a ballad, but not nearly enough energy for a real party-hard celebration thingy. Celebration tracklist? No-like either: some freakin' lame songs while some of the strongest ones are omitted. Celebration album art? The one with the photo montage, well at least it's SOMETHING, even tho I hate the cigarettes; the other...what does that have to do with anything celebration??? And the music video teasers, well, I was like, "not a final version, they just leak these and the real thing will be much better". The Benny Benassi mix, I haven't heard yet, but er, I shouldn't have, either. And the music video itself... *shrugs*
Like a bad-Erotica and Jump mashup, with SOME 2009 sound. 'cept, Erotica had some artistic value, here the only relation is that it's full of gyrating hip and wriggling body and touching those lower areas. And what for? The hell does that have to do with celebrating? I mean, sure, good sex is cause for celebration, and you can celebrate with good sex too, but this time it just shouldn't be about that at all, mainly not in such quantity. Dancers are jumping up and about, but we've all seen this in Jump already - 'cept, at least that one had some props and actual street scenes. Here? Big nothing in the background, and in the foreground there are some people doing - nothing. If at least there was some CGI in the background, it'd have some looks, but this way...bleh. Only nice thing is actually the stuffs M's wearing (apart from the wig), but that's no justice to anything else. Fuckin' big fat zero - and I doubt I should be surprised, considering the ~history~ of Celebration so far.
M's the one who should be celebrated, right? Her music, her career. We should be seeing thousands of fans, screaming, partying, applauding, at concerts, at festivals, with signs and flags with messages above their heads. (Okay, there's gonna be one with those too, but why just a 2nd version?) We should be seeing Madonna, highlights from her pasts, cutscenes from her older videos, her iconic alteregos, and the like. The lyrics is supposedly full of references to her older works, why don't we get to see anything from that? To the dancers, all my respect, really, mainly after I've seen 'em performing during the tours. But, gods forgive, I'm not interested in their acrobatics when I'm ought to celebrate the Queen. And Jesus...I understand he's her current lapdog, but that's none of OUR fuckin' business. It's for the tabloid; 'specially this way, I mean, has anyone ever heard ANY music that HE produced yet? Still he's playing the almighty DJ there.
So, Celebration, doesn't get kudos at all. And here's something to chew on: just HOW COME that Celebration has no Jesus Luz Remix version yet?... [/sarcasm]
